Overview

At the end of each week you will complete an independent project. This project will demonstrate the concepts covered during the week. It will also act as an example of your coding ability in your growing portfolio.

This lesson will walk through the entire independent project process, including deadlines, schedules, expectations, feedback, and submission.

Academic Honesty

Independent projects must be completed individually. You may reference online resources, Learn How To Program, and your own code, but you may not view or copy current or former students' work.

As explained in our Student Handbook, these projects are an opportunity to receive personalized feedback, and to ensure you're developing skills for success after graduation. If you plagiarize work you both lose this valuable opportunity and risk setting yourself up for failure at a job or internship. This will not only harm you, but the reputation of all Epicodus students as well.

For these reasons, projects are carefully reviewed to confirm all work is your own. Students found to have plagiarized or received help from others will be expelled.

Keep in mind that failing projects may be resubmitted. (see Resubmission below). If you find yourself struggling, don't feel tempted to plagiarize. Do the best you can, and submit what you have. You and your teacher can later work out a plan for revisiting and resubmitting the project.

Schedule

(Deadlines differ for the part-time evening course. Your teacher will address this in class.)

Independent projects are published on Learn How to Program each Friday by 8:00am PST. They can be found at the end of your current week's curriculum.

Projects must be submitted through Epicenter no later than Friday at the end of class.

Course Requirements

Successful completion of independent projects is required to pass courses and graduate. Keep the following in mind:

All independent projects must be completed and passing to pass a course.

You must pass your current course to advance to the next course.

You must pass all courses in their track to be eligible for an internship, and to graduate.

You are also required to verbally walk your instructor through at least one independent project codebase in-person, at least once per course. Your instructor will determine which project to discuss, and set up an in-person meeting.

Further Exploration

Each project includes a Further Exploration section with optional objectives. These are ideas to extend your application beyond the minimum requirements. You're encouraged to tackle these extra features if you complete the primary objectives with time to spare.

Remember, the purpose of completing these projects isn't just to pass your courses! In the future, you will need to demonstrate your coding skills to potential employers. By creating polished, professional projects each week you will exit the program with a diverse, well-rounded portfolio before you even begin your job search!

Submission

Independent Projects must be submitted by the end of class on Friday. (For evening and online Intro to Programming students, code review deadlines will be discussed in class.)

Before submitting, do a final check for each objective. Spend a few minutes checking indentation, removing commented-out code, creating a detailed README, etc. Your project should feel polished and complete.

When everything is in order, complete the following steps to submit your project:

Take a moment to complete the survey, which includes a few brief multiple-choice questions about how this week went for you. Epicodus staff uses this information to continually improve our processes and content. While your code review is associated with your Epicenter account, your survey answers are anonymous. Submit the survey using the button at the bottom of the survey's scrollbox.

In the large Epicenter text field below the survey window, include a brief note to your teacher about your process that day, and any questions or concerns you may have. This content will be sent with your project submission to your teacher, and is not anonymous.

Submit your independent project for review!

Evaluation & Feedback

Your teacher will review your project the following week. You'll receive general written feedback, and each objective will be rated on the following scale:

The code does not meet this standard.

The code meets this standard most of the time.

The code meets this standard all of the time.

To pass a code review, you must receive meets this standard most of the time or meets this standard all of the time on all objectives. If any objectives receive a does not meet this standard the project does not pass. You will be required to complete further work and re-submit.

Resubmission

If you fail to pass any of the objectives, your teacher's feedback will identify why the objective(s) are not met, and what can be improved to meet them. Take the opportunity to check in with your teacher regarding anything you don't understand, work through those problems, then resubmit using the same steps listed above. In the Notes field, document exactly what work you've done since your last resubmission.

Resubmissions are (generally) due the week after you receive feedback. Your instructor may provide more details, or specific resubmission deadlines.

Group Work

In the fifth week of each course (besides level 3 courses, which will complete a week-long independent project) we will work in 4-person groups on a cumulative project. This project will count as your fifth code review, and must be submitted through Epicenter by the last Friday of the course.

For more details on group projects, see the fifth week of your course's curriculum.